Capone reviews: Tom Hardy’s ‘BONKERS’ gangster movie verges on horror as BAFFLES critics

Cinemas may be closed, but some studios are taking a financial gamble with direct-to-streaming releases. The latest is Tom Hardy’s take on gangster Al Capone during the ill-health of final days. While a UK release date is yet to be announced, US critics have been split and baffled by the film, which has 46% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

Hollywood Reporter
Capone is definitely an unconventional take on the twilight of a notorious gangster.

Alas, it’s not an interesting one, although the borderline self-parodying Method madness of Tom Hardy’s performance does kind of demand to be seen.

Entertainment Weekly
[Director Josh Trank] invests so much in atmosphere and in chronicling Capone’s decline that the storyline – riddled with flashbacks and half-hallucinations – becomes a sort of surreal afterthought, a strange patchwork of bathos and brutality.

IGN
Capone seems destined to become a cult film, as it’s part character study and part body/psychological horror tale, and features a Tom Hardy performance that’s clearly Acting with a capital A.

READ MORE: Bond favourite Tom Hardy: Shock ‘Awkward’ first pics as Al Capone

Capone’s synopsis reads: “Chronicling the final days of notorious gangster Al Capone as he succumbs to dementia and relives his past through tormenting memories.”

Capone may be one of the most terrifying figures in modern history, but his fall was swift and absolute.

When he arrived at Atlanta U. Penitentiary in May 1932, aged 33, he was officially diagnosed with syphilis and gonorrhoea, as well as suffering from withdrawal symptoms from cocaine addiction, which had perforated his septum.

Over the years in prison, his neurosyphilis eroded his mental faculties and he became confused and disoriented.